‘And Now the Good News’: Great art travels to Istanbul

“Ja, thirty years,” Peter Nobel smiles when asked how long he and his wife, Annette, have been collecting art. “One does not expect to have seen such paintings, pictures that one could collect and put together to make a specific show that is actually unique.”

Peter and Annette Nobel from Switzerland are in Istanbul for the opening of a new exhibition based on the collection they’ve amassed over the decades. And what a collection it is!

Artists such as John Baldessari, Bedri Baykam, Joseph Beuys, Georges Braque, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Christo, Elmgreen & Dragset, Alberto Giacometti, Andreas Gursky, Ozlem Gunyol & Mustafa Kunt, David Hockney, Jenny Holzer, Dennis Hopper, Barbara Kruger, Le Corbusier, Fernand Leger, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Kazimir Malevich, Man Ray, Aleksandr Rodchenko, and Andy Warhol are represented in “And Now the Good News: Works from The Nobel Collection,” and are on view through August 7 2022 at Pera Museum.

The exhibition, spread out over three floors of the museum in Beyoglu, features around 300 works by 164 artists who have used a variety of media such as painting, photography, collage, drawing, installation, and video. The works on display are by modern and contemporary artists whose works are often seen at hallowed venues, such as New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and London’s Tate Modern.

Annette and Peter Nobel say they decided to collect what they call “Press Art”  for a number of reasons: “Firstly, technical fascination, then the intellectual scope and finally, the change, played a role in our decision to collect press art.

“It is astonishing how many artists have temporarily, incidentally or repeatedly used newspapers as a basis for their works, even painted from newspapers or even designed them themselves. This is a conscious act and can be seen as a call to deal aesthetically with everyday phenomena. Art becomes a symbolic living world.”

The collection assistant, Hanspeter Portmann, who works for the Nobels, says the entire collection comprises about 2,000 works that are related to newspapers and press materials. “He started the collection about 40 years ago. He worked for a publisher, and he could choose something for his office. His boss at the time did not want to pay for it. So he bought his own artwork.”

The curator Christoph Doswald, who couldn’t make it to Istanbul because he was recovering from a car accident he was in with his wife, notes in a news release that the genre term “Press Art” and its artistic products “elevate the cheap, daily renewable consumer good to an expensive individual item: Collages made from newsprint; paintings whose model was provided by a press image; photographs showing a magazine cover; gouaches applied to newsprint; silkscreens based on a star photograph from a celebrity magazine.

“The paintings, collages, assemblages, drawings and prints in the collection of Annette and Peter Nobel tell of a time when the relationship between the direct original and the media image still existed.”

According to Doswald: “More than ever, not only the credibility of the media but also the much-cited autonomy of art is being put to the test.”

M Ozalp Birol, the General Manager of the Suna and Inan Kirac Foundation Culture and Art Enterprise, mentions that we now live in a “post-truth” era and that by looking into the past, we broaden our horizons about today.

“And Now the Good News exhibition offers an art experience that both stimulates memory and inspires those trying to understand the present.”

One of the doyens of Turkish art, Bedri Baykam, whose works are also part of the Nobel Collection and are on display at Pera Museum, says even as a child, he always felt close to newspapers and cutouts from newspapers.

“When I arrived back in Türkiye from the United States in 1987, I was very shocked to see the effects of the 12 September regime,” he tells TRT World. “[President Kenan] Evren and [Prime Minister Turgut] Ozal were in power, and I did a show criticising torture while they were in power at the Ataturk Cultural Center [AKM].

“This is when I cut out a newspaper quote that said ‘Basit dovme iskence sayilmaz’ meaning ‘A simple beating does not amount to torture.’ This was very shocking to me. This is a piece that I will not even paint. I will frame it and keep it as such. It is a real collectors’ item.

“I did this show and then other shows where I used this technique. I would blow up a newspaper headline and paint over it in my own abstract style, and with my own techniques, with sprays and washes and drips.”

Baykam says the paintings on display at Pera Museum are from his 1997 exhibition about the 1968 generation. Pointing out that the Kennedy assassination had shocked him, he motions to the mixed media painting behind him, telling TRT World that it had led to an entire exhibition.

“Collage is not easy for every collector,” he muses. “Many Turkish collectors, even foreign collectors, say ‘oh, I don’t understand this, is this art?! Please give me some real paintings,’” he says. “They just want big oil on canvas paintings.” Baykam, ever the pioneer, has recently dipped his toe into the world of NFTs, releasing his own for sale.

He praises Annette and Peter Nobel for being open-minded, saying they have amassed pieces by Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holzer, and Rodchenko: “It’s so impressive, the art they have collected, Malevich, Mayakovsky, these countless names in history… Of course, whenever I show [my pieces along] with world history names, it’s a nice pleasure. On the other hand, it’s also a pleasure to be with young unknown artists. I always keep the faith that among them will be the next Braque, the next Malevich… I respect all the young artists.”

“And Now the Good News: Works from the Nobel Collection” at Pera Museum can be visited until August 7 2022. The museum is closed on Mondays. Entrance is free on Fridays between 6 and 10pm and free for students on “Young Wednesdays.”

THUMBNAIL IMAGE: Edward Ruscha. News, Dues, Stews, Brews, Pews, Mews, 1970. Silkscreen prints (food), 6 parts, 101/125 each 57.8 x 80.5 cm. (Courtesy of the artist)

HEADLINE IMAGE:  Dennis Hopper. Harlem (Daily News), 1962. Silver gelatine print on paper, 12/15 40 x 60.3 cm. (Courtesy of the artist & Dennis Hopper Art Trust)